General Chat

I have always noticed the stag and the lion but never thought to find out who lived there. Just thought it was the Blandford estate

That's the 'old' gate, nameslessone.
A bit too dangerous to use now.

I realised last night that I probably drove past the stag a couple of years ago. I didn’t count it’s legs but did wonder why it appeared to be above the back gate :-S

It's still not open to the public.
They once held a Summer fete there. Even from the grounds, you couldn't see the house - and if you wandered off for a quick 'nosey' there were security guards!

I started learning about it when I got divorced.
I lived in the New Forest, my ex lived in Stinsford (Dorset), so the children went past Charborough and back, every other weekend!

Drax certainly had a lot of land!

The 5-legged stag is quite impressive.

Years before I started family history, I drove past the Drax estate (Charborough) whose walls seem to go on for miles. I felt drawn to it, somehow, and wanted to find out more but, as it's usually not open to the public, information then (pre-www) was hard to come by.

When I started my research, there were generations of my Dorset ancestors living in 2 villages nearby and working on Drax land.

:-D :-D :-D :-D

Ah Sylvia, thanks for the Ancestry explanation :-D

It's nice to know Ancesty isn't be-all and end all, and can't buy everything up.
You can search the slavery records online, for free, thanks to those who did the work - the UCL!

I had thought that Richard Drax hid his extra very well when he reported on local TV, but then it turns out that the stag with five legs is on the gate to the family estate.

Oh diddle!

:-D :-D

It's alright ,Sylvia.

He didn't put 'diddle-iddle-iddle um' .

I wonder if Rolf Harris' song about the man with the extra leg is still under any kind of protection from people such as Rollo?

maggie ................

I think Rollo is using a more-or-less rarely used abbreviation for Ancestry.

It's used mainly by people who want to confuse others, or believer wrongly that GR will delete the full word if it is used.

Why did you mention it if it isn't relevant?
Normally, you write a short essay on the greatness of your 'ancestors' whether it's relevant to the post or not.
If, as you initially stated, your ancestor built some institutions that are still there, why are you so coy about saying what they are? Surely that's a good thing?

As for Nathaniel Wells, he didn't need to be adopted, the slaver was his father:
" After his British wife died, William began fathering children by his slave women – at least six, all by different women. Although rape was a well-known practice, Wells looked after both the children and their mothers, giving them their freedom and sums of money to live on—including Nathaniel's mother, Juggy, and leaving the bulk of his estate to Nathaniel'

Nathaniel happened to be the only son among his illegitimate offspring.
You can read what the site says here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/25474

I'm not sure who 'Ay' is, but I'm afraid the registers of claimants, and names of the slaves is on line, as I mentioned in the opening post.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/search/

I think you'll find, as is evident from slave 'hubs' in the UK, that the slave trade certainly was important to the UK economy.
Cotton and coal kept the economy going, slavery was the icing on the cake.

As for the East India Company (or 'John Company' as you call it), Yes, it too was a rather disgusting episode in Britain's history, and the truth should be told, but you're deflecting.

so one of your relations was a stag with five legs, Polo!

Wouldn't you just know he would have a relation who had three legs?

maggie ................

I think we are all supposed to be aged silly women with very short term memories ;-)

Absolutely nothing to do with you - but you altered your post.

However, you must be proud of those slaver ancestors who built institutions.
I'm amazed you don't appear to know which ones they are.

I have to agree, nameslessone.

I only asked who had watched the programme, and whether they'd done what I did.
I didn't ask who had slave trading ancestors.
I then receive a reply from RTR indicating that, yes, he had slave trading ancestors, but they were philanthropic slavers - they adopted slave children!
He also said his slave trading ancestors were definitely not the Drax family, despite his indicating to great length, in an (admittedly much) earlier post that he was related to them!

Hmm, it appears someone's hoisted himself by his own petard.

Don’t you just hate it when someone arbitrarily deletes or substantially rewrites a post.just makes them look silly when the original post is quoted somewhere else.

So some negro guy they adopted? started the 1832 slave insurrection?
Surely that's a case of biting the hand that feeds you.

By the way, the Dorset Drax are definitely related to the slaving Drax.

I always thought the Peterloo massacre was about political reform, exacerbated by a unemployment, an increase in food prices due to a bad harvest, and the Corn Laws.

There was a general strike in 1842 in Manchester among the textile workers due to pay cuts etc.

Taking down statues, changing street names, hiding stuff in museums will simply ensure that the trans Atlantic trade - cotton was not mentioned yesterday- is forgotten. Instead the history should be part of school curriculum. Statues such as Colston should have people such as Samuel Sharpe and Bob Marley nearby.
There is also the issue that large numbers of native Brits were brutally treated spinning cotton grown in Dixie. This culminated in the 1819 Peterloo massacre in Manchester.